“In Flanders Fields,” the iconic poem which gives its title to this collection of poems and selected prose, is one of Canada’s — and the world’s — best known poems of the Great War. It was written in 1915 by Canadian John McCrae, an artillery man, poet, and medical doctor, upon the death of a friend and fellow soldier during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915.

This is a faithful reissue of the Canadian first edition of McCrae’s writings, originally issued by his friends in 1919 in his honour and memory. It includes the best of his poetry and selections of his letters from the front lines together with a thoughtful essay of appreciation by his friend and fellow medical officer, Sir Andrew Macphail.

John McCrae was a medical doctor and poet. He served with the army in the Second Boer War and later in Europe during the First World War. The suffering and death he witnessed in the war became the subject of many of his poems, including "In Flanders Fields," perhaps the most famous Canadian poem ever written. McCrae died in 1918 and was buried with full military honours.

John McCrae's profile page

Sir Andrew Macphail was a noted Canadian physician and man of letters. The founding editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, he also published more than ten books. He was knighted for his literary and military work in 1918. The book for which he is best remembered is The Master's Wife.

Sir Andrew Macphail's profile page

Michael Gnarowski co-edited The Making of Modern Poetry in Canada, compiled The Concise Bibliography of E nglish Canadian Literature, and edited the Critical Views on Canadian Writers Series for McGraw-Hill Ryerson. He has written for Encyclopedia Americana, The Canadian Encyclopedia, The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography, and The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry. Gnarowski is professor emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Michael Gnarowski's profile page